Fox News host Juliet Huddy on Sunday asserted that the Ferguson Police Department was right to release video of a robbery because it could convince protesters that the "officer was justified" when he killed unarmed teen Michael Brown.
On Saturday, law enforcement sources told NBC News that the Department of Justice had asked Ferguson police not to release the video over fears that it could inflame protests after Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson admitted that the officer who shot Brown did not know he was a suspect in the robbery.
"You see this local police department seems to be completely overwhelmed," Huddy explained on the Sunday edition of Fox & Friends, adding that the DOJ had asked that the robbery video not be released.
"They felt that it would anger the crowd, which I don't understand," she insisted.
"Why would the Justice Department pressure them not to?" co-host Tucker Carlson asked. "Obviously it's not to keep the situation under control... [The FBI] refused to intervene when people were looting stores. So if you had an interest in keeping the situation under control, you would control the situation by preventing people from stealing wigs."
"But the thing is that the crowd immediately went out there when they found out that this man was shot -- a young black man was shot by a white cop," Huddy said. "They went out there, they were furious about it."
She continued: "Had that tape been out there, had crowd realized that this man might have been robbing a store, there might have been something else criminal going on there, you know, to lend credence to the fact that maybe in some way -- we don't know this -- but maybe this officer was justified, maybe this was a bad guy, maybe he wasn't the 'gentle giant.' I'm not saying that's what it was."
